"A version of the match-three game is set to launch next Thursday within the World of Warcraft MMO (massively multiplayer online), letting players kill time with puzzles during raids and long stints farming rare items." Oh god no. Don't cross the time-sink streams!

"And if there was a "prize" in this lottery, it was not so much the object itself, but the letter and the awesome mysteries of unfathomable spiritual connections, and the very gesture itself from this dear, dear person and the timing!" What a story.

"He calls the new version of the escapement a 'Chronophage' (time-eater) – "a fearsome beast which drives the clock, literally "eating away time". It is the largest Grasshopper escapement of any clock in the world." Stunning new timepiece for the Corpus library. Breathtakingly beautiful.

"This is something I said about Spore a while back, actually. I thought Spore could be a little like what Understanding Comics is to Comics. As in something from the form which uses the form to explain the form." Oh, I like that as an idea. He can be a smart one at times, that Gillen.

"I've just finished attending the AIR tour and during the final (particularly funny) presentation, I completed a TextMate plugin that has full API completion support." Useful – some syntax completion, and a shortcut for application preview.

"You might argue that an iPhone without connectivity is, well, an iPod, but its not. To state the (obviously overlooked) obvious – it is a phone without connectivity and that over time the ease and evolving practice of disconnecting fundamentally changes our assumptions of what we can expect from a phone, which in turn alters our expectations about the connectivity of other people." Jan Chipchase on pause buttons and understandings of what "social" means. Excellent.

"KeyCue gives you an instant overview of the overall functionality of any application, plus lets you automatically start working more efficiently by making use of menu shortcuts." Awesome. Really, really awesome. I might well end up registering this.

"His advice for those attempting a project like this, is to get people who understand the web. DICE hired a web development director, and a web producer. "Without those people, we would have never made it as far as we have," he says. He also recommends a web tech director, which DICE did not need to hire "because we had a team in DICE who were pretty strong."" Excellent article about building games for the online age; the section on the socially-driven BH website is very incisive.

"Bandcamp isn’t Yet Another Place to Put Your Music. We power a site that’s yours. So instead of our logo plastered between banner ads for Sexy Singles Chat, your fans see your design, your music, your name, your URL. You retain all ownership rights, and we just hang out in the background handling the tech stuff." Via Waxy; looks really excellent, and some wonderful stat-gathering tools for bandowners.

"…then, after destroying his nano-network, as an admonition to the audience, extended [Arthur C Clarke's metaphor]: 'Any truly advanced technology is indistinguishable from garbage.'" Excellent summary of what sounds like a wonderful GDC Austin keynote from Bruce Sterling.

"'What we've done in MMOs and what we tend to lean toward is building an enviroment for the new player to explore that is essentially a safe environment… the newbie zone. For our explorative learners, we've given them safe zones to explore.' But that doesn't work for imitative learners." Excellent article on styles of learning, with particular attention to how MMOs teach players game mechanics.

"Very recently an anonymous poster on /b/ claimed to have hacked Sarah Palin's Yahoo e-mail account." 4chan members get into Sarah Palin's barely-disguised Yahoo mail accounts which she used for business.

"It occurred to me that if I could somehow tether a DSLR to an instant-on device like an Arduino microcontroller I would have less weight to carry around and could get more work done. After mentally spec’ing out what I would need, I realized the solution was right in front of me – because I bring it with me for Mario Kart wireless races on long night jobs – (In the manner of John Lasseter’s slow epiphany voice): “Use-the-Nintendo-D-S.” Duh." Oh wow.

"To be seen as art, games need to be easier. A lot easier. They don't have to be only easy. They can provide Elite Super Awesome levels for the enjoyment of those who love to be challenged." Eesh, I don't know. I think there needs to be easier games – hell, games are getting easier all the time – but a super-hardcore game like Psyvariar does _not_ need a built-in easy mode. Its purpose is to be hard. Not convinced by this article at all, unfortunately.

"Because stupidity is such an unthinkably terrible thing in our culture, the students will then spend hours constructing arguments that explain why they are intelligent yet are having difficulties. The moment you start down this path, you have lost your focus."

"Innovation seems to mean doing something so significantly different that you alienate the userbase that should be familiar with your product. More applaudable, in my mind, are those games that smuggle in small amounts of unique and exciting gameplay that enhances the experience without fundamentally redefining it… Warhammer Online is a game that abounds with this kind of innovation. From elements that are purely new and thought provoking, to small gameplay tweaks that subtly push new perspectives on tired MMO cliches, there is a lot of good stuff to be found in the game." Brandon Reihnart takes a look at WAR.

"Unlike other video platforms, Panda is not just a service for encoding your videos for the web; Panda handles the whole process. From the upload form to streaming, Panda takes control." Open source, Merb-based video platform that anyone can use – runs on top of Amazon EC2, S3, and SimpleDB.

"Apple’s current practice of rejecting certain applications at the final hurdle – submission to the App Store – is disastrous for investor confidence. Developers are investing time and resources in the App Store marketplace and, if developers aren’t confident, they won’t invest in it." Fraser Speirs hits the nail on the head over the problems with the current App Store model.

12 September 2008

The term “demake” was most likely coined by one Phil Fish, to describe a remake of a game on older-generation hardware (or, more likely, a remake that is made to look as though it were running on older-generation hardware). The most obvious demake is, of course, the 3d-to-2d demake.

Got it?

And to explain their notion of “bootleg”:

The term “bootleg” generally means “unauthorized or unlicensed copy.” For this competition it means that you cannot use any trademarked names or ripped materials. Everything must be 100% your own (although obviously inspired). Think “Cogs of Conflict,” “Master Chef,” “Great Giana Sisters,” etc. It is your decision how far to take the bootlegging, but under no circumstances can you violate someone’s intellectual property.

Sounds good so far. What blew me away was the quality of the responses in the month since the competition began.

The first is Super 3D Portals 6, a Portal demake for the Atari 2600. Not “2600-style”; this is actual code that will run on 2600 emulators, and thus should do so on a real 2600 as well. Outstanding for its commitment to retro-dom. (Note: I believe this was completed before the competition was launched, but it’s so awesome I don’t care).

The other has been linked up in many places, and is just remarkably thorough: Soundless Mountain II. The thread is long, and covers a lot of development, but the NES-style survival horror has some impressive touches and is clearly a real labour of love.

I think my favourite demake in the competition turned out to be STACKER: Nuclear Scavenger. The title screen makes it look like a STALKER demake, but in fact it’s so much more: it takes Diablo II-style inventory management, adds a Russian twist… and turns into a Tetris-clone. The more I think about it, the more it makes me smile. Gaming reduced to inventory management. Fantastic.

Anyhow, I thought all the games in the competition deserved bringing to people’s attention, and so that’s what I’ve done. I’m off to sit in a tent for a few days. Back soon!